The beaches might be cooling off but the performing arts are heating up, with many wonderful upcoming classical music events on the calendar. The events below include ballet, opera, symphonic music and chamber music at various performing arts venues. Catch a show and you’ll get the chance to revel in the emotion that classical music can evoke.

Kravis Center for the Performing Arts

701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach
Alexander W. Dreyfoos Concert Hall 

Ballet Palm Beach Presents “The Nutcracker”

Saturday, Dec. 4–Sunday, Dec. 5, 2021

Written in 1892, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker“ is a timeless, beautiful ballet that has become a magical holiday tradition. “The Nutcracker” ballet is based on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s novella “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.” The two-act ballet is a story about a little girl who meets a nutcracker that comes to life on Christmas Eve and wages a battle against the wicked Mouse King. While Tchaikovsky didn’t actually like “The Nutcracker” much, the composition has become one of his most famous works. The beautiful music score and choreography of this Ballet Palm Beach production will transport you to a place of excitement and suspense, and is the perfect way to kick off the holiday season.

 

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Palm Beach Symphony Presents Masterwork Series: Romantic Rachminoff

Monday, Jan. 10, 2022 

An incredible musical program will be featured during this event featuring the superb pianist Yefim Bronfman, performing one of the greatest piano concertos ever written — Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 — together with the Palm Beach Symphony. Included in the program will be Dmitri Shostakovich’s strong Symphony No. 5 and Anatoly Liadov’s “Kikimora.” Liadov’s composition is taken from a Russian folk story about a mischievous and vengeful spirit. The heroic fifth symphony by Shostakovich was written 20 years after the 1917 Soviet Revolution. It’s filled with an inner struggle between Shostakovich’s own will, while accepting the Soviet regime. 

The Cleveland Orchestra Performs Mozart and Tchaikovsky

Sunday, Jan. 23, 2022 

In what is sure to be a delightful performance, you’ll get to listen to the work of two musical geniuses in one concert. Performed by the Cleveland Orchestra and conductor Franz Welser-Möst, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Symphony No. 36 will begin the program. Also known as the “Linz” symphony, it took Mozart merely four days to write this entire composition, creating a grandly imaginative work in such a little amount of time. The other magical work to be performed is Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4. Dedicated to his best friend Nadezhda von Meck, who loved his music and helped him financially, this masterpiece is fueled with the idea of fate. Tchaikovsky worked on the fourth symphony during a catastrophic marriage and finished it in the aftermath. While Nadezhda never met Pyotr, they wrote letters to one another that are read even to this day.

Palm Beach Opera Presents “Carmen” by Georges Bizet

Friday, Jan. 28–Sunday, Jan. 30, 2022 

The French composer Georges Bizet’s world-renowned opera “Carmen” will begin the Palm Beach Opera‘s historic 60th anniversary season. Written in 1874, this four-act opera is a blazing, energetic composition that’s lasted the test of time. The original premiere in 1875 was a huge disappointment, with critics calling Bizet’s “Carmen” vulgar and undramatic. While that opinion has since changed, the composer died before the work achieved huge international acclaim. This expressive work has engaging melodies, fascinating characters and a truly dramatic tone that most opera lovers adore. 

 

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The Society of the Four Arts

100 Four Arts Plaza, Palm Beach 

Walter S. Gubelmann Auditorium 

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center: The “Brandenburg” Concertos

Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2021 

Get ready to be transported to the Baroque period, as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center performs Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Brandenburg” concertos. These six timeless compositions, written in 1721, are spiritual fulfillment for music lovers. They’re filled with inspiring strength and are largely considered to be among the greatest orchestral works of the Baroque period. Any time is a great time to listen to these vibrant pieces, but to get a chance to hear them live at the end of the year is a wonderful treat for a vision of the best-possible future.

Roberts Theater at Saint Andrew’s School

3900 Jog Road, Boca Raton

Sizzling Strings with Andrés Cárdenes

Saturday, Jan. 8, 2022  

Conductor and violinist Andrés Cárdenes will make his debut with The Symphonia, South Florida’s world-class chamber orchestra ensemble. The all-strings program will begin with variations on Niccolò Paganini’s “Caprice” No. 24 — widely considered one of the most difficult pieces ever written for the solo violin. So many difficult passages on the violin make this an impressive musical experience. The next composition on the program is Antonio Vivaldi’s Concertos in E Minor and D Major from “La Stravaganza.” After so many expressive moments in Vivaldi’s works, the concert concludes with a dark arrangement by Gustav Mahler of Franz Schubert’s Quartet in D Minor (“Death and the Maiden”).

 

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Olympic Heights Performing Arts Theater

20101 Lyons Road, Boca Raton 

Boca Ballet Theater’s “The Nutcracker” 

Catch the Boca Ballet Theater’s iteration of “The Nutcracker,” which brings Clara, the Nutcracker Prince, the Mouse King and the Sugar Plum Fairy all to life through the vision of co-artistic director Dan Guin. A unique version of the holiday classic, it will feature professional guest artists from the San Francisco Ballet, breathtaking sets and costumes, and of course, the iconic Tchaikovsky score.